Absorbent pads, and in particular prewetted absorbent pads, have become popular vehicles for the delivery, application and removal of various products in recent years. Such pads are used today to deliver, apply, and remove antiseptic lotions, skin medications, cosmetics, soaps and other cleaning products, for example. Many of these products contain alcohols, ammonia, and volatile solvents and are thus subject to evaporative losses when stored under normal conditions preparatory to use.
Usually these absorbent pads, and "absorbent pads" as used herein includes the towelette type products used for diaper wipes, wet napkins, applicators for furniture and shoe polish, and similar type uses, have been sold premoistened or prewetted in individual packages or stacked in containers having a lid to be opened and closed by the consumer. The drawbacks which are most often associated with having each pad individually wrapped are the expense to the manufacturer and to the consumer of individually packaging what would otherwise be a much less expensive product, perhaps, and the inconvenience of having to open a new package with every new use of the pads. One advantage of individually wrapping these products, however, is that loss of the useful material absorbed into the pads by evaporation during storage is minimized. In many cases, however, the losses which might otherwise be experienced due to evaporation will not justify the added expense associated with packaging and the added inconvenience to consumers.
The other conventional method of packaging absorbent pads preparatory to their use by the consumer has been to stack the pads in containers having reclosable lids. The difficulty with this sort of dispensing package is that, for those materials carried by the absorbent pads which are subject to evaporation under normal storage conditions, evaporative losses are often unacceptably high. The consumer in using the pads from such containers may not close the lid, or may not close the lid properly, or may be unable to close the lid sufficiently to obtain a good seal. Moreover, as are removed from certain of these containers, used and discarded, the space between the remaining pads and the lids thereof may provide increasing room for evaporation of material from the remaining pads. This material will be lost when such a container is next opened, even if the container is properly closed and resealed after each such use.
There is a need, then, for a dispensing package of prewetted or premoistened absorbent pads in particular which provides a degree of resistance to losses by evaporation of useful, vaporizable materials superior to that provided by the lidded containers described above, but which does not make the pads inconvenient to use or add appreciably to packaging costs.
The present invention meets this need and overcomes the shortcomings of the prior art in providing a novel and improved absorbent pad and a novel dispensing package for dispensing discrete portions of a vaporizable material for a variety of uses.